The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix

Book #180 of 2022:

Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix

A whirlwind tour of decades of English-language horror publishing, spanning from Rosemary’s Baby in 1967 through the middle-grade era of R. L. Stine and Christopher Pike in the mid-90s, and quite a lot in between. While author Grady Hendrix covers too much material to go into significant depth about any individual titles, his pithy summaries and juicy notes on particularly outrageous moments speak to a rich passion and extensive knowledge of the genre. He discusses trends in the industry and in common plot tropes from exorcisms to vampires to haunted houses to animal attacks, while conveying an enthusiast’s chagrin that so much of this pulp fiction seemingly hasn’t made an impact on the culture that’s remembered today. The writer doesn’t mention his own novels at all, but it’s clear how their strengths must derive in part from everything Hendrix has taken in and is writing in celebration of and/or reaction to.

I listened to this 2017 book on audio, and felt torn between a 3-star (“I liked it”) and 4-star (“I really liked it”) rating. I’m rounding up to the latter based on the inclusion in the print edition of so much cover art, which is its own forgotten 20th-century treasure trove. The text describes these images and highlights certain prolific artists too, but I’m sure the visual effect is even more striking.

[Content warning for lurid descriptions of everything from rape to racism to torture and gore. Horror is a genre that can go pretty dark, and this title doesn’t gloss over any of it.]

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Star Trek: Enterprise, season 1

TV #56 of 2022:

Star Trek: Enterprise, season 1

In my ongoing aim to watch through the entirety of the franchise, I have now seen 27 whole seasons of Star Trek. That’s all of The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, in addition to most of Voyager, and this, the debut year of the prequel show Enterprise. It is hands-down, categorically the worst of the lot.

Trek is often hit-or-miss for me anyway, with the highs generally making up for the lows and an overall baseline competence in sci-fi storytelling throughout that keeps me engaged even when I’m not loving it. This season, however, is just viscerally unpleasant in all its pettiness. Debuting a mere two weeks after 9/11, it was surely conceived and produced before that atrocity and the US response, at least initially. Yet Scott Bakula as the new captain radiates an aw-shucks George W. Bush energy, and the narrative around him already reflects the crusading cultural atmosphere that would ride our military into a forever war in the Middle East. So many of these early episodes consist of Archer and his crew brashly asserting that they have the right to butt into situations and apply their own morality, with strawman protests against that intervention raised and quickly overruled.

Consider this exchange:

VULCAN ELDER: I don’t have to tell you, Captain. We don’t condone these actions you are about to take.

CAPTAIN ARCHER: No, you don’t have to tell me. Just try and stay out of the way and everything will work out fine.

That’s from an episode airing in October 2001, the same month that America launched “Operation Enduring Freedom” to kick off the invasion of Afghanistan.

If I were being charitable, I might ask whether this jingoism represents an actual attempt in the scripts to say something critical about the franchise backstory — a genuine conscious effort to imagine how Starfleet officers might have been at the start, with the idea that they’ve mellowed some in the century between this and TOS. At times it almost seems like the point of these adventures is to show why humanity eventually adopted the Prime Directive, or at least to provide an interesting now/then contrast via space exploration without it. But it feels more like the writers were just writing what they knew when looking 150 years forward, which turned out to be xenophobia and a wholesale conviction of one’s own moral superiority. For the most part, they aren’t saying, watch how our heroes stumble without firm principles to guide them. Instead, the thesis appears to be no, Archer’s right, and the Federation should have been interfering more all along.

There’s not many specifics to this mission yet either, like DS9 and Voyager immediately set up as premises for those programs. Rather it’s like TOS and TNG in just sort of vaguely boldly-going, which I thought / hoped Trek was past by now as a concept. Even the theoretically-new canvas of this era mostly just results in the translators and transporters not working as well, over any notable period-particular conflicts. While there’s some time-travel and talk of a temporal cold war, it’s in such generalities that it barely registers as more significant a concern than the ship’s delayed arrival at the resort planet Risa.

Without a larger plot this kind of show largely just becomes about the characters, and they too haven’t impressed me much by this stage. One hour is just a long joke at Tucker’s expense that he’s been emasculated by a female alien non-consensually impregnating him, with no sympathy for the assault on his bodily autonomy (and ending with the vulcan T’Pol smugly / transphobically mentioning that she’s searched the history databases to confirm he’s the first human man to ever become pregnant). Another finds Hoshi ignoring Malcom’s insistence that he’s a private person who doesn’t especially want to share things with his coworkers, calling up his friends and family on earth and browbeating the doctor into letting her look at his medical records, all in an effort to learn his favorite food. And there’s a repeated male discussion of T’Pol’s looks and speculation on her sex life over multiple episodes, which has to be the laziest way for the dialogue to demonstrate humanity’s early unease with aliens as our crewmates and would-be equals.

Nevertheless I’m not ready to quit this show. Beyond my simple completionist tendencies, I would say that the building blocks are here for Enterprise to pull its act together and be at a minimum no worse than the other Trek series. Yet in this initial run, though, it’s pretty miserable throughout.

Also? The theme song sucks.

★★☆☆☆

Book Review: Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

Book #179 of 2022:

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #3)

This is the first volume of the Singing Hills Cycle that hasn’t quite worked for me. We’re still following nonbinary Cleric Chih as they wander around this East Asian fantasy world recording people’s stories, learning the truth behind the lore, and finding unexpected adventure themself, but the balance among those elements feels somewhat adrift this time. Specifically in that second category, there’s not much substance provided about the events that may have inspired the latest local legends — we / the protagonist understand by the end that the tales haven’t necessarily been preserved faithfully, but that’s a fairly trivial point this far into the series, and this novella differs from its predecessors in not really providing any detailed alternate account for the reader to entertain. The itinerant warrior companions make this title a fine example of wuxia fiction, but there’s nothing that especially elevates the material or moves me like #ownvoices author Nghi Vo has before.

Luckily these installments are so self-contained / disjointed that there’s no larger narrative for an off-note to disrupt, and I expect I’ll continue to enjoy the venture overall. I just wouldn’t say that this particular outing represents Chih’s saga at its best.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

Book #178 of 2022:

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #2)

Earthsea is a very loose children’s fantasy series, somewhat akin to The Chronicles of Narnia: although certain characters recur across volumes, each book has a fairly distinct structure and tone, and there isn’t much of an overarching plot. This second novel, for instance, sees the former protagonist Ged pop up in a supporting role in its back half, but it neither relies on reader familiarity for context / impact nor spoils his earlier adventures for newcomers. (In fact, if you are only going to read one Earthsea title, or want to see it at its full strengths before committing to more, I would categorically recommend checking out this one rather than the first.)

Our story takes place in the Kargish empire, previously mentioned as the home of warlike barbarians, but not depicted at much length. Here we see that they engage in human sacrifice, corporal punishment, and other such unsavory customs, with worldbuilding details presented in sparse but effective matter-of-fact clarity through the eyes of our young heroine. We also learn that this is a civilization built upon the exploitation of a single ritually-designated child, a sharp theme to which author Ursula K. Le Guin would return a few years later for her classic piece “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

Within this setting — a land of pale-skinned natives contrasted with the darker peoples throughout the rest of the Earthsea archipelago who are more literate, cosmopolitan, and technologically-advanced, which definitely feels like the writer thumbing her nose at convention and racist expectations — we are shown the coming-of-age of the latest priestess. She’s been taken from her family, stripped of her given name, and brought up to inherit the wisdom of her predecessor, who is said to have been her own self in a previous reincarnation. Besides her eventual intersection with Sparrowhawk, this figure is notable in the long line of that tradition for living in a moment when the old ways are falling out of favor — still dutifully observed, but not honored, and relegated as subordinate to the worship of the God-kings who have have risen to rule in the recent past.

One thing I love about the narrative of this novel, and that I think sets it apart in the genre, is how thoroughly non-magical it is for most of its run. Arha believes utterly in the Nameless Ones she serves, but she slowly comes to realize that not everyone around her feels the same, and until the end, readers are given no direct evidence of their power. Despite the presence of Ged, the reality of wizardry in the rest of the series, and this volume’s status as a fantasy book, it’s easy to wonder if her political rival is correct and she’s just clinging to a dying superstition, and to accordingly view her religion’s teachings through a mundane / grounded critical lens. That aspect furthermore underscores another important throughline of the text, which is the girl coming to repudiate her role in her society’s cruelties and agentively choose a new path forward for herself. Without going into spoilers, both threads pay off beautifully in the conclusion, and cement this as the high point of the franchise for me.

★★★★★

Book Review: Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie

Book #177 of 2022:

Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie

This standalone spy thriller, also published under the name So Many Steps to Death, is not necessarily playing to author Agatha Christie’s strengths, and there’s a definite vein of anti-Asian and anti-Black racism (including an instance of blackface) running through the affair. It nevertheless carries a certain ludicrous joy in its James Bond-esque plot, in which prominent scientists from around the world are disappearing, either by defecting or being kidnapped by an unnamed group with unclear intentions. One such figure has vanished without his wife, whom the authorities suspect is in on the plan and merely awaiting her own opportunity to follow. So when she dies unexpectedly and an agent trailing her notices a nearby woman of the same description on the brink of suicide, he recruits the latter to take up the former’s identity and infiltrate the syndicate or die trying, since that was her original intent anyway.

It’s all a bit goofy, but it’s a marked improvement over the Poirot story The Big Four of a quarter-century earlier, which utilized a similar premise. While not a mystery per se, the narrative here contains a few twist reveals and accompanying red-herring fakeouts, deployed with the writer’s usual skill. As with the frequently bigoted framing and comments throughout the text, the Cold War concerns may not have aged well since 1954 — perhaps explaining why this title is one of only four Christie novels that remain unadapted for television or film — but it’s a solid lightweight caper overall.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Boy in the Red Dress by Kristin Lambert

Book #176 of 2022:

The Boy in the Red Dress by Kristin Lambert

I appreciate the representation in this title — bisexual heroine, trying to clear the name of her gay runaway best friend who performs in drag at the speakeasy run by her lesbian aunt and has now been accused of killing someone from his past — but it’s a bit chaotic throughout, with just too many clashing tones. The story generally feels as though it’s aiming for a queer take on classic noir, but it’s furthermore a work of historical fiction set in 1920s New Orleans as well as a YA novel starring mostly teenagers. (The movie Brick is of course evidence that high school noir can succeed, but the genre mashup of murder investigation and cheesy love triangle is a difficult balance to strike, especially with so many other elements here.) I still like this book overall, but unfortunately its disparate pieces don’t ever cohere together into something stronger for me.

[Content warning for gun violence, homophobia including institutionalization, domestic abuse, and racism.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

Book #175 of 2022:

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske (The Last Binding #2)

3.5 stars, rounded up. I don’t like this queer adult fantasy sequel nearly as much as its predecessor, but it’s an engaging story that mostly earns the reader’s forbearance over the switch in protagonists. Whereas the first volume in this series followed Robin and his new magician friend as they roamed across Edwardian England growing closer whilst seeking to foil a devious plot, this one instead focuses on his sister Maud and her new magical same-sex love interest, who get wrapped up in a murder mystery and its fallout aboard an ocean liner together. Their ensuing romance probably isn’t any more graphic than the lads’, but it’s a lot less of a slow burn, which makes it feel rather hormonal, abrupt, and generally unnecessary. (Am I pleased that the shyer heroine is learning what/who she wants and how to ask for her needs to be met? Sure! But those scenes distract us from the ongoing investigation, while the corresponding moments in her brother’s narrative seemed to function more as rewarding payoff for built-up character arcs.)

The two women are not in bed for the entirety of the novel, however, and I’ve enjoyed how author Freya Marske has crafted this tale within the limited space — both temporal and physical — of a three-day sea voyage. The choreography is almost farcical at times to arrange all the players accordingly, and they bounce off one another nicely as the plot unfolds, with everyone trying to simultaneously track down the latest wizardly macguffin, unmask one or more killers, and keep their unenlightened fellow passengers from discovering the existence of magic. I still think I would have preferred to stick with the original pair of heroes regardless, but this spinoff does ultimately prove an entertaining diversion in its own right.

[Content warning for gun violence, homophobia, racism, torture, and gore.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Measure by Nikki Erlick

Book #174 of 2022:

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

The high-concept premise here is certainly intriguing: everyone in the world wakes up to find a box containing a string whose length correlates to their exact lifespan. The shorter your string, the sooner you’ll die, and like any story about attempting to cheat death, some of these turn out to be self-fulfilling prophecies — people inadvertently bringing on their own demises by the actions they take after learning they don’t have long left, in addition to straight-up suicides. While some folks leave their boxes closed, most choose to check, resulting in a wave of discrimination against the so-called ‘short-stringers.’

That’s fine as far as it goes, and I think I would’ve enjoyed a short story collection set within this universe (a natural companion piece to the old Machine of Death anthology, whose characters know the manner but not the timing of their ends). But it doesn’t really work for me as a novel, especially since the mysterious origin of the strings is never investigated or revealed. The plot is basically just eight random Americans acclimating to the new reality, and the many coincidental connections among these individuals that build up as the book unfolds feel too cutesy and contrived to me. I don’t like the protagonists very much either, and I’ve found it rather hard to get into their headspace at times. One is agonizing over only having fourteen years remaining to him, for instance, which seems like an absurdly long span compared to some of the patients with real-life terminal conditions who manage to lead quite meaningful existences in the face of their own diagnoses.

The social upheaval is the most interesting element of the text, functioning as a decent metaphor for pandemic disruptions as well as bigotry against various identity groups. But there’s not enough of that on display, and many worldbuilding questions don’t seem to have been adequately thought through. Is life insurance still available, and if not, how does that impact families who’d ordinarily rely on it when a loved one passes? Once strings start being used to impose romantic and professional limitations, what’s preventing simple forgeries and thefts from getting around all that? These issues wouldn’t necessarily matter in a work of shorter fiction like a one-off Twilight Zone episode, but by asking us to dwell in an extended narrative, author Nikki Erlick is making a promise of substance that ultimately isn’t delivered upon.

[Content warning for gun violence.]

★★☆☆☆

TV Review: Happy Endings, season 3

TV #55 of 2022:

Happy Endings, season 3

Overall, I’d have to call this last season of Happy Endings a step down from the preceding one. The comedy is way more hyperactive, sometimes to the extent of substituting volume and repetition for wit, and many episodes build to a big slapstick moment like the program did early on, before it had found a good footing. It also feels like there’s a noticeable uptick in the number of punchlines that take the form, “I can make this joke about Black/Jewish/gay/female people because I have friends in that category” — which already wasn’t okay upon airing in 2012-2013, and is even more egregious today. Dave’s insistence that he has Navajo ancestry likewise gets trotted back out, to the accompaniment of some awful attempted humor about smallpox blankets.

Plotwise, there’s some welcome serialization, but it all tends to end with a shrug and a return to the status quo, rather than lasting and/or affecting the characters in any meaningful way. The biggest of these plot arcs involves Dave and Alex getting back together again as was hinted at in the previous finale, but they prove pretty insufferable as a couple (and she’s a lot less fun / distinctive whenever paired with him for an episodic storyline). The whole cast actually seems crueler and pettier this time around, as often happens on sitcoms, and the balance necessary to keep them still likable doesn’t quite land for me.

Ultimately, this remains an effective sitcom. I truly and deeply love the bit about a dealership called the Car Czar whose slogan is that they know what cars are. But the show has never really lived up to its potential in my opinion, and I’m not disappointed to be moving on from it at this point.

This season: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Seasons ranked: 2 > 3 > 1

Book Review: The Stranger Beside Me: The Shocking Inside Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy by Ann Rule

Book #173 of 2022:

The Stranger Beside Me: The Shocking Inside Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy by Ann Rule

I sometimes have difficulty rating pieces of nonfiction, but my general principle is to weigh a work against the best possible version of itself, by asking what the author is trying to accomplish and how well I believe they’ve achieved it. In the case of this true-crime title from 1980, I’m not entirely convinced that that benchmark has been met.

The story behind the story remains incredible, even four decades on: writer Ann Rule was already under contract to write a book about a string of unsolved murders when she learned that a friend she’d met as a fellow volunteer on a suicide crisis hotline had been arrested and charged with the crimes. Ted Bundy is now known as a notorious serial killer, pedophile, and rapist, and this account of his awful prolific career preying on young women and girls in the 1970s is appropriately harrowing in its details of how he would kidnap and brutalize his victims. But it doesn’t yield much insight into what it was like for the journalist herself to go through this journey of discovering and confronting the truth of the matter. Although Rule can provide quotes from her personal correspondence with Bundy, her presentation of the facts doesn’t read as too dissimilar from what anybody else could have written on the subject.

Now, as a reader largely unfamiliar with the man beforehand, I am satisfied — well, horrified, but you know — with The Stranger Beside Me. The author ably captures his dangerous charm and his reputation as a folk hero for his multiple prison escapes, as well as his cruelty and of course his terrible body count. It’s all pretty thorough and shudder-inducing, and I expect I’ll feel no particular urge to read anything about Bundy ever again. But if I had come to this volume previously aware of those things, I think I would be disappointed by the lack of personality exhibited in its pages. It’s ultimately not a narrative about the late Ann Rule at all, even though she’s the distinctive element here and one of the two parties referenced in the title. When I consider how much of herself Michelle McNamara poured into I’ll Be Gone in the Dark as merely an obsessive amateur researcher on the Golden State Killer, it’s hard not to feel let down by the relative neutrality of this genre predecessor that could/should have contained so much more firsthand material.

[Content warning for ableist slurs.]

★★★☆☆